What took so long?
“What took so long?”
I’m guessing you have never had to deal with the government. The IRS sent a letter telling me I had not paid my 2020 taxes. This was last year. They charged me the taxes $11.5k plus interest and penalties. I had a copy of the check the IRS cashed check. You would think I present a copy of the cashed check and that would be that. You call the IRS and they call you back in two hours. The clerk who may or may not speak recognizable English can’t help. You go back in the queue. Two hours later another clerk calls and he can’t help you. Rinse and repeat. You only get three calls per day. They can’t tell you why they can’t help or how the next guy might be able to. After three days and nine calls I called Sentor Rubio’s office. Loads of paperwork went back and forth and finally, they called the IRS. (Oh, his office lost my case twice and I had to start over.) At this point I have three months, numerous calls and letters invested. Total run time on this was a year and probably fifty hours of my time.
Finally, my case was assigned to another agency whose purpose is to interface between the ordinary unwashed masses and the IRS. They were every bit as hard to deal with. Finally, a tax professional who felt she owed me a favor for helping her daughter and son-in-law buy a house took me under her wing. She wrote a letter demanding a transcript. I got the money because the IRS could NOT provide a transcript. Why? They changed computers and lost my records. So, they just refunded everything the tax professional said they owed me.
I asked two senator’s staff if it was this difficult to deal with all agencies or if it was just the IRS. Both staffers told me that the entire government works just like this. The amazing thing is that it works at all.